In my U.S. Pat. No. 4,363,819, for example, there is described a process for the preparation of a number of accordion-pleated sausage casings carried by a common support, referred to as a sleeve.
The sausage casings can be composed of sheep, goat, pig or cow intestine and generally are prepared in advance for delivery to the sausage-casing filling machine and, by the use of the method and package of that patent, a plurality of such casings on a common support can be positioned at the mouth of the filling machine so that the casings are successively filled with the sausage meat.
The several sausage casings are fitted one over the other and thus are telescopically interfitting at the ends at which the casings are joined, by being drawn onto the support which can be a sleeve of synthetic resin material which is flexible, smooth and relatively soft. Because of the telescoping relationship of the overlapping ends, i.e. the interfitting portions of successive sausage casings, overlap by several centimeters with the prior casings, in the sense of filling.
The advantage of the method and apparatus of the aforementioned patent is that the preformed package of sausage casings on a common support can be prepared in advance and readied at the location of the sausage casing filler so that the entire package can be introduced into place to permit the sausage casings thereof to be successively filled.
Sausage casing handling is simplified, the down time of the filling machine is minimized and the production rate can be increased substantially.
In one embodiment of the method described in this earlier patent, the synthetic resin soft and yieldable sleeve is drawn onto a rigid tool (mandrel) having a cross section substantially identical to that of the support. Warm water can be passed through the sleeve to facilitate softening of the sausage casing sections, the sausage casing sections can be drawn onto the sleeve and, after overlapping of the ends, the sections can be bonded together. The operation in which the sausage casings are drawn onto the sleeve is relatively delicate because of the poor slidability of the casings on the sleeve. Since the latter is generally composed of polyethylene and can have the same cross section as the internal cross section of the casing, the act of drawing the casing onto the polyethylene sleeve may damage the sleeve. The danger of such damage requires that the casings be drawn onto the sleeve with great care and hence the entire operation is comparatively slow.